“Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don’t read that much but save
yourself some until you’re grown up.”

Albert Einstein in a letter to his son Eduard, June 1918

Short life history: Eduard Einstein

* July 28, 1910 Zurich, † October 25, 1965 Zurich

On July 28 in 1910 Eduard, the second son of Albert Einstein (1879–1955) and Mileva Maric (1875–1948), was born in Zurich. From his mother he received the nickname “Tete”. Eduard was a sensitive child who was often ill. Einstein and his family moved to Berlin in 1914. As Mileva didn’t like Berlin and the marriage with Einstein was broken, she decided to move to Zurich with her sons only a short time later. They got divorced in 1919. Eduard and especially his older brother Hans Albert (1904–1973) suffered a lot from the divorce of their parents.

In Zurich Mileva took care of the education of her sons. Eduard, a very talented pupil, made an especially good impression due to his highly intellectual and musical talent. Despite the separation Einstein often visited his sons and Mileva in Zurich. He also undertook little journeys with his sons. Eduard passed his A-levels in 1929 as one of the best students. Afterwards he began to study medicine. He wanted to become a psychiatrist.

At the age of twenty, Eduard began to suffer from schizophrenia. That happened in 1930. Mileva took care of her “Tete” lovingly. He had to go to “Burghölzli”, a psychiatric sanatorium in Zurich, for the first time in 1932. But it shouldn’t be for the last time. Eduard abandoned his studies. The problems with her ill son and the high costs caused by the stays in the sanatorium were a great burden for Mileva .

Albert Einstein and his second wife Elsa emigrated to the United States in the autumn of 1933. There he found a new working place in Princeton, New Jersey. Eduard’s brother, Hans Albert, and his family went also to the United States in 1938.

1948, after the death of his mother Eduard only lived approx. 9 years in “Burghölzli” (from 1948 until 1965), the remaining time he lived in foster families. When he was hospitalized in 1957 it seemed at first like a temporary relocation, however, due to the illness of his foster mother this became a durable solution. In 1965 he died in the “Burghölzli”. He survived his father by ten years.